Works He Studied

Kcraaeeau bad been the prophet and forernnner of the iiew social dispensation. The scheme for applying its principies is fouud in a work which bears the name of a veiy mediocre man, the Abbe Raynal, a man who enjoyed iu his day au extended and splendid reputatiou which now appears to have had only the slendor foundations of nemerited perseention and tho friendship of superior men. In 1TTO appor.red over his name u volnme of wbich he was the compiler, but not the author. "Philonophical and Political History of the Establishnitnts and Commerco of tho Enropeans In the Tvco Indies" is a miscollauy compounded of extracta from many sonroes and of short essays by Rnynal's brilliant aequaintanoos ou superatition, tyranny and similar thoines. The reputed author had written for tlie public prints and had published severa! works, none of which attracted attention. The ainazing success of this ono was not reniarki'.ble if, as the critics now be.lieve, at least a third of the book was by Diderot. Tho position of the self styled author as a man of letters immediately bocame a foremost oiie, and such was the vogue of the work that the authorities flnally becarno alarmed. A dramatic climax to Raynal's renoven was secured when in 1781 the volmne was conde.mned to be burned aiid the writer fled for safety into exile. The storm had finally subsided, he had returned to Frailee, and commnnication was opened betweeu the great mail and his aspirine reader. "Not yet 18," are the startling words iu tho letter written by Bonaparte, "I am a writer. It is the age when we must lcarn. Will my bolduess subject me to your raillery? No; I am sure. If indulgenoe be a mark of true genius, you should have rnuch indulgence. I inclose ohapters 1 and 2 of a history of Corsica, with au outline of the rest. If you approve, I will go ou; if you adviae me to stop, I will go do further. " These chapters as they came te) Kaynal's hands are not in existence, so far as isknown, and posteritycan never judge how monumental their author's assurance was. The abbe's reply was kindly, but he advised the uovico to complete his researches and then to rewrite his pieces. Bonaparte was not unwilliug to profit by the counsels ho received. Soon af ter, in July, he gave two orders toaGenevese bookseller, one for books concerning Corsica, anothor for tho memoirs of Mme. de Warens and her servant, Claude Anet, which are a sort of supplement to Ronsseau's "Confessions. " The young historian's letter teems with bad spelling and bad grammar, but it is saturated with the spirit of his time. Some of the lagging days were not only spent in novel reading, as the emperor in after years confessed to Mme. de Remusat, but in attempts at novel writing to relieve the tediuin of idle hours. It is said that flrst and last Bonaparte read "Werther" five times through. Enough remains amoug his boyish scribblings to show the kind of fantastie dreams both of love and of glory in which he indulgid. Many eutertain a shrewd suspicion that amid the gayeties of the winter he lost his heart, or thought he did, and was repulsed. At least, in his "Dialogue on Love, " written five years later, he says, "I, too, was once in love," and proceeds, after a few Unes, to decry the sentiment as harmful to mankind, a something from which God would do well to emancípate it. There seems to have been in the interval no opportuuity for philandering so good as the oue he had enjoyed in the drawing rooms of Mme. de Colombier. Ithas at al) ovents been the good fortune of that excellent and charming woman to secure, by this supposition, aplace in historynot inerely as the iufluential patrouess of Napoleon, but as the mother of hisfirst love. But these were his avocatious. The real occupation of his time was study. Besides reading again the chief works of Rousseau and devouring the Abbe Raynal, his most beloved author, he also reud much in the works of Voltaire, of Filangieri, of Necker aud of Adam Smith. With notebook and pencil he extraoted, annotated and criticised, his mind alert and every f aculty bent to the clear apprehension of the subject in hand. To the conception of the state as a private corporation. which he had imbibed from Rousseau, was now added the conviction that the institutious of Frauct' were no longor adapted to the occupations, beliefs or moráis of her people, and that revolution was a necessity. To judgo from a memoir presented some years later to the Lyons Acn.demy, he must have absorbed the teachings of the "Two Indies" almost entire. Theeonsumingzeal for studies on the part of this incomprehensible youth is probably unparalleled. Having read Plutarch iu his childhood, he now devoured Herodotus, Strabo and Diodorus. China, Arabia and the Indies dazzled his imagination, and what he conld hiy hands upon concwniug the cast WOB soon assimilated. England and lermány uext eugaged his attentian, and toward the close of his studies he became ardent in examining the niinutest details of French history. It was, morcover, the science of history and not of literature which occupied him - dry details of reveuue, resources and in.stitutions. The Sorbonne, the buil Unigeuitus and church history in general, the character of peoples, the origin of institutions, the philosophy of legislation - all these he studied, andif the character of his notes is trustworthy v.-ithsome thoroughness. He also found time to read the masterpieces of French literature and the greac critica! judgmeuts which had been